1530TM battery won't charge in the car

[AudiDudi]

Noob here. Bought the 1530TM at Costco about a week ago. The unit will power on automatically when connected to the car charger, recognizes the "traffic device" but will not charge the battery. Even though it says "battery charging".

Taking a 60 mile round trip journey, at highway speeds, so under 1 hour round trip, the battery goes from 90% to 15%. This happens in 2 different vehicles.

I live *far* away from any radio that may give traffic updates. The traffic indicator just "spins" the whole time.

When the unit is unplugged, with no cables connected, it will discharge the battery from 90% to about 75% overnight. This is when it is inside the house, not in the car.

The unit will charge when hooked to a PC USB port.

I'm guessing I need to get a new car charger - I'd prefer not to have to return the whole unit and go through the whole 7 hour update process again and try to switch unit serial numbers on my account.

Recommendations? I have emailed tech support.

 

[canderson]

You'll get a quicker response by calling. If it's < 1 year old, they owe you a new car charger under warranty, I'd say.

I'm not familiar with a "1530TM" (I hadn't seen them include traffic and maps), but I'm guessing it is a VIA 1530 and not a GO 1530.

If you've got a VIA 1530, that will have the cable hard wired to the charger plug itself, but there are plenty of 5V plugs out there, some even providing 2 separate USB outlets, and you can pick up a USB-A to microUSB cable to run between that and your 1530. If your use would make a dual output unit practical, you might consider one of those as an aftermarket 'upgrade'. If not, I'd call TS and suggest they send you a new one.

 

[AudiDudi]

Thanks for the quick reply - it is a VIA 1530 with the lifetime traffic and maps. As it is only about a week since purchase, it is well under 1 year old.

Thanks for the suggestions on the alternate connectors - the traffic receiver is built into the cord.

I guess I am a little surprised that the battery life is so poor, going from 90% to 15% in less than 1 hour.

I'll give TS a chance to reply to my email and if I have not heard anything in a couple days, I'll give them a call.

 

[canderson]

Ah, stupid me. Of course, for a Via 1530 you need the original cord to get the RDS traffic (I started out thinking perhaps you had a GO 1530TM which is a Live model and doesn't use the RDS method).

So double check my recollection -- is the cable hard wired to the cigarette lighter adapter end on that model? If so, you definitely want to get your new one via warranty. We find email to be very slow response, and response to a call to be MUCH more timely. The number is 866-486-6866.

 

[AudiDudi]

Yes, the cable is hardwired to the cig. lighter adapter.

As for email response, I got an email back from support in under an hour. The information they want is kind of strange as they already have it:

i) Your full name
ii) Your email address
iii) Daytime telephone number
iv) Daytime mailing address (No APO or PO Boxes)
v) Photo of the box showing the model number (If Invoice copy is not available)
vi) The serial number and the model number of the TomTom device(found at the base of the barcode of device. It starts with C_NO or S_NO)

They already obviously have my email, name and address when I registered the unit. They must have the serial number and model number used when I activated it 6 days ago and did the download. They must know by the serial number it was built less than a year ago. And I provided the serial number when I sent them the email. Seems to me it would be easy to go to a store and take a photo of the box so that proves nothing Most inefficient!

On a side note, is a 1 hour battery life typical?

 

[Andy_P]

The information they want is kind of strange as they already have it:

THAT'S why canderson said it would probably be quicker to call them.

They can faff around like that for ages by email before you actually get anywhere.

 

[AudiDudi]

Thanks for the input. I sent them the requested data - if the faff around, I'll give them a call. I just hate to be on hold.

So just what is the typical battery life? 1 hour seems *way* low to me. I suspect that is due to a constant search for a traffic signal it will never find.

Is there a way to disable the traffic? I've checked the menus and don't see any way to do that.

Thanks!!
mike

 

[canderson]

Haven't played with that specific model, but 2 hours is more the norm for many of these newer units. They're definitely NOT designed to run on battery power for long. The assumption is that apart for brief periods, external power will be available in the vehicle. Doesn't seem like operating the RDS receiver would suck down all that much juice.

 

[Andy_P]

Only way to disable Traffic would be to use a normal charger rather than the one with built in RDS-TMC.
If it hasn't got the receiver attached (eg when running on batteries), it should give up looking for it after a couple of minutes.

 

[AudiDudi]

Thanks for the reply. I was wondering if the continual searching for a traffic signal was causing my battery to deplete in about an hour. I don't have a "regular" charging cable so no real way to test that.

To TomTom's credit, they have shipped out my replacement charger cable in well under 24 hours after I contacted them by email. That seems to me to be pretty good customer service.

 

[AudiDudi]

The new charging cable arrived today and fixed the issue with not charging.